LITMIR.BIZ

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get on; we never have. Oh, as a child I wanted her love, craved it almost until I realised I simply was not and never could be the child she wanted—or another David… I don’t blame her for that… After David, I must have come as a deep disappointment to her. I don’t suppose you can understand. The whole world adores my mother…adores her and respects her…’

      ‘I do understand.’

      It was said so quietly that Sage almost didn’t hear it. She turned to look at her sister-in-law and surprised such a look of raw pain in her eyes that she had to turn away again. It was as though she had momentarily opened the door into a private, secret room, and she withdrew from it with the instinctive speed of a nature that hated to trespass or impinge on anyone else’s privacy because she valued her own so much.

      ‘Sage—’

      The fierce urgency with which Faye said her name caused her to look at her again, but just as Faye was about to speak the door opened and the specialist she had seen before, Alaric Ferguson, walked in.

      If anything he looked even more exhausted, Sage recognised. He gave her a distant glance before focusing properly on her, saying as he recognised her, ‘Miss Danvers, Sister will have told you that we have had to sedate your mother in an effort to lessen the physical shock of her accident, and until we’re completely happy that that has taken place we won’t be able to do anything further.’

      ‘Her injuries—what exactly are they?’ Sage demanded urgently.

      He paused, looked at her thoughtfully for a moment and then said bluntly, ‘We suspect there’s some pressure on her brain—how much we can’t as yet tell. In case you don’t understand the seriousness of this, perhaps I should explain…’

      When he did so, outlining in brutal detail the small, very small chance of her mother actually recovering, Sage discovered that she was gripping the inside of her mouth sharply with her teeth to prevent her lips from trembling. Behind her she heard Faye give a low, shocked cry. She reacted to it immediately, spinning round to reach out to her, but the specialist had moved faster and as Sage turned towards Faye he was already reaching out to grip her arm and steady her.

      He wasn’t the kind of man who appealed sexually to Sage—oh, he was tall, and probably well enough built if one discounted the exhausted hunch of his shoulders and the stoop that came from working long hours. True, his skin was pale from lack of fresh air, his eyes bloodshot, his dark red hair untidy and badly cut, but underneath his lack of outward physical gloss there was such an obvious aura of male strength and reliability about him that Sage was astounded to see Faye stagger back from him, her face white with deathly fear, her mouth contorted almost in a grimace of atavistic rejection.

      Sage knew that her sister-in-law preferred to keep the male sex at a physical distance, but she had never seen her react like this before, never seen her make a movement that was uncoordinated…never seen any emotion across her face as intense and primitive as the defensive rage which now etched it.

      For a moment she was too shocked to speak or intervene. The specialist looked as shocked as she felt, and then Sage saw shock give way to a mingling of curiosity and concern as he quickly withdrew from her.

      ‘It’s perfectly all right,’ he told her quietly. ‘I’m sorry if I alarmed you.’ With that he turned on his heel and left them alone.

      In the strained silence of the empty room, the harsh battle Faye was fighting for control of her body and breathing was painfully audible. Sage dared not reach out to her, dared not speak to her, never mind touch her. Her eyes had gone wild, feral almost like an animal’s when the primitive instinct of panic overcame every trace of domesticity. It was almost as though, if Sage did reach out to touch her, Faye might sink into her hand the teeth she had bared in that shocking sharp snarl of rejection.

      Her skin, usually so pale, was now burning with colour. She started to shake violently, her eyes slowly focusing on Sage, their brilliance dimming as recognition took the place of rage and then gave way to flat, open despair.

      She was shaking so much that she could barely stand up, and very gently, very cautiously, Sage reached out to her and, when she let her take hold of her arm, led her gently over to a chair.

      Much as she longed to ask what was wrong, she suppressed the words, knowing by instinct that she wouldn’t get an answer.

      ‘I’m so sorry,’ Faye was whispering painfully. ‘So very sorry… It was just the shock…’

      Of hearing about her mother’s slender chances of recovering, or of being touched by the specialist? Sage wondered silently.

      ‘He could have broken the news rather less brutally,’ was all she allowed herself to say. ‘It’s just as well Camilla decided not to stay…’

      The look of mingled agony and gratitude Faye gave her made her wince inwardly for her own lack of strength. Had she been her mother, there was no way she would have allowed the incident to be passed off like this… She would have insisted on routing out the real cause of Faye’s reactions… Would have told herself that, no matter how much pain talking about it might cause Faye, in the end she would feel better for unburdening herself of whatever it was that had caused such a violent response.

      But she wasn’t her mother… She avoided encouraging people to confide in her, to lean on her. Selfishly she didn’t want their problems…their confidences. She was almost glad that Faye had withdrawn from her, that she was keeping whatever it was that troubled her so desperately to herself.

      ‘I think perhaps I’d better leave calling at my office until tomorrow. It’s been a traumatic visit for all of us. We can’t do anything to help Mother by staying here, no matter how guilty we might all feel about leaving her. The sister said they’d ring us immediately if there was any change in her condition…’

      ‘If she dies, you mean,’ Faye said bitterly. ‘Have you noticed how even here in a hospital, where they’re dealing in death every day, they refuse to use the actual word? Not at all well…but never, never dying…’

      Watching Faye pound her fists helplessly against the arms of her chair, Sage wished she could give vent to her feelings as easily.

      She too was frightened, she recognised… No, her fear wasn’t the same as Faye’s… But it was there none the less. Hers was a selfish fear, she thought in self-contempt. Hers was a fear of having to shoulder the burdens her mother had carried… Of having to step into shoes which had never been designed for her… which she knew instinctively would cripple and hobble her. And already it was happening…already Faye was turning to her. How long would it be before she started to lean on her the way she had leaned on David and then on her mother?

      Shocked and almost disgusted by the selfishness of her own thoughts, Sage took hold of Faye’s arm and gently pulled her to her feet. ‘Camilla will be waiting,’ she reminded her.

      She had always liked Faye, albeit with the same kind of affection she might have felt towards a favourite pet, and it came as a shock to find herself almost close to hating her, to feeling as though Faye had set in motion a trap which was starting to close around her. Faye wasn’t the clinging type in the accepted sense of the word. On the contrary, she visibly and painfully struggled not to be so, and yet one was always aware of her desperate need for the strength of others, for the companionship and caring of others. Why she had never married again was a mystery to Sage. She so obviously needed the strength and devotion of a husband, of another David…but then men like David were hard to find, even if one looked, and Faye did exactly the opposite of that, preferring to shut herself off from the rest of the world rather than go out to meet it.

      She couldn’t go on like this, Faye recognised as she followed Sage down the corridor. For a moment there in that small stuffy room she had virtually destroyed everything she had worked so hard to create…for a moment there with that male hand reaching out towards her, she had stupidly, recklessly come perilously close to throwing everything away, everything she had spent her entire adult life trying to achieve.

      Why had she been so careless? Why had she over-reacted

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